Every year the provincial government of Balochistan allocates funds for law and order in the annual budget but the worsening security situation in the province shows that either the allocated funds is not being spent over the improvement of law and order or the allocated amount is not enough.
Individualland Pakistan (IL-Pakistan), a research based consultancy firm recently embarked on a 19-month initiative Public Participation for Good Governance and Accountability in Balochistan aiming at sensitising the local population of 13 districts of Balochistan regarding district budget allocation in five thematic areas including law and order, health, education, infrastructure and women development, says a press release issued here on Wednesday.
The 13 districts include: Quetta, Pishin, Ziarat, Qilla Saifullah, Qilla Abdullah, Chaghai, Kharan, Awaran, Dera Bugti, Dera Murad Jamali, Jhal Magsi and Mastung. The IL-Pakistan constituted Social Audit Team (STA) for engaging local community comprising youth and district media personnel to acquire information about the spending of the district budget under the five thematic heads.
The budget analysis 2013-14 was shared with them during the capacity building workshops to highlight the amounts of all the departments under the five thematic areas so that the SAT members could easily identify with the analysis and develop their own action plans and questions.
After formulating, SAT members conducted field surveys to monitor the development work in the districts and law and order situation and visited different departments in 13 districts to acquire information that the budget allocated for these places is being spent properly or not and the information they received and the conclusion they came to are known as the SAT findings.
The total number of police personnel levies, deployed to maintain law and order in Qila Abdullah, are 1,272 out of which 802 are levies and 470 are security personnel. The numbers of police stations in District Qila Abdullah are 25, which are located in Qila Abdullah, Chaman, Dobandi and Gulistan.
In District Qila Saifullah the salary for levy forces is Rs 20 million per month and there are separate funds for the repair of levy police stations, check posts, uniforms which are in large numbers. There are 124 constables and 35 police officers. There are also three Mazda cars, one bus, one prisoner van, eight pickup vans and five motorcycles.
In District Ziarat there are a total of 11 police stations, 10 check posts and 12 cars for police personnel. The amount allocated for repair of police stations is Rs 150,000 and an amount of Rs 537,000 is allocated for uniforms of levies forces.
Looking at these SAT findings it seems there are still issues regarding the law and order situation in Balochistan as the budget is not being spent properly to improve the security situation and the provincial government should invest more and take extreme steps to restore peace in the restive province.-PR
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